At the site of medical practice, for example, the hand-check that checks the condition of a body surface or a body interior of a patient by the touch of a hand is becoming popular. Exact judgment of the condition of the body of the patient with the hand results in early ascertainment of the cause of the disease. Further, the hand-check is significant also at the scene of self-health check because it can be put to practice by the patient oneself.
In the examination regarding breast cancer, for example, the practice of confirming the condition of the breast with the hand is generally adopted. Particularly in recent years, the early detection of breast cancer has become a very important task in view of the increase of the incidence rate of breast cancers. The breast cancer, when suffered to occur in the thoracic part, forms stiffness. When the stiffness is detected by the hand-check while it is still in a small size, the death rate of this disease can be decreased by early therapy.
Generally, a woman is enabled to confirm the presence or absence of this stiffness formed in her thoracic part by performing the hand-check with her hand across the thoracic part while her skin is wetted or covered with soap water as in the course of bathing. This method is aimed at enabling the condition of a body interior to be checked sensitively by decreasing the frictional resistance between the hand and the thoracic part. In the circumstance excepting the course of bathing, the frictional resistance that is generated between the hand and the thoracic part results in lowering the sensitivity of the hand and disabling exact detection of the stiffness.
A pad adapted to sensitize the touch of a hand irrespectively of the condition of a body skin and consequently allow early detection of stiffness possibly existing in the body interior has been known (JP-A SHO 61-292182). This pad is composed of a shell (bag) formed of a latex material or a natural rubber material and a lubricating liquid formed of silicone or glycol and retained in the shell. A woman client holds this pad between the thoracic part and the hand and moves the hand around. She is enabled to decrease the friction by the action of the lubricating liquid and check the thoracic part by oneself via the lubricating liquid and the shell of the latex material, for example.
The pad mentioned above, however, entails the problem that when the shell is broken by an external shock of some sort, the pad will become unusable because of leakage of the lubricating liquid from the interior and will suffer the leaking liquid to defile the environment as well. The pad requires the component materials thereof to be so selected that the shell may not suffer from seepage of the lubricating liquid. Therefore, when this selection is mistaken, the lubricating liquid will infiltrate the shell and gradually ooze out the shell.
Further, when this pad is used while the user remains in her standing position, the lubricating liquid in the interior thereof is inevitably gathered by the gravitational attraction in the lower part of the interior of the shell. The shortage of the lubricating liquid will occur throughout the upper part of the pad from the center thereof upward and the hand-check by oneself will be performed with difficulty.
Then, the combination of the lubricating liquid of silicone material and the shell of latex material are expensive in spite of the fact that they are characteristically difficult of mutual infiltration. Therefore, the pad has not been widely available in spite of an unusually high need for the pad. Further, the conventional pads are apt to be used repeatedly because their price range is expensive (several thousand yen, for example). When they are used in hospital, for example, they must be given a sterilizing treatment each time their use is repeated. They have consequently entailed problems in terms of convenience and hygiene.
This invention has been produced in view of the problems mentioned above and is aimed at providing a glove which can be manufactured very inexpensively and is capable of sensitizing the touch of a hand.